BREAKTHROUGH LYME DISEASE DRUG?; MAN'S SEARCH UNCOVERS NEW POTENTIAL CURE.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

When three of Martin Atkinson-Barr's relatives contracted a stomach infection on top of debilitating Lyme disease, they hoped a prescription for a decades-old antibiotic would make them well.

Instead, the drug made them feel much, much worse.

And then - incredibly - much, much better.

That reaction sent Atkinson-Barr to the Internet, where the self-employed physicist found dozens of others who seemingly had been cured of Lyme disease by taking metronidazole, an antibiotic usually used to treat gum disease and stomach flu.

He then contacted Dr. Richard I. Horowitz, a Lyme disease specialist from Hyde Park, N.Y., who tested the drug on 120 of his sickest patients and said he achieved incredible success.

``As his patients were coming in after their first month of therapy, they were getting dramatic results,'' Atkinson-Barr recalled. ``We had patients who were getting out of wheelchairs.''

Horowitz now plans to report on his successful findings during a Lyme Foundation conference in April.

``I have been searching for a cure for Lyme disease now for 11 years,'' said Horowitz, who treats 1,000 patients a year. ``I've looked at almost every antibiotic combination known to mankind.''

Until Atkinson-Barr contacted him, Horowitz had never tried metronidazole - also known as Flagyl - primarily because the drug is old and not frequently used.

``It's almost too good to be true,'' he said. ``Sometimes we overlook something in medicine which is right before us.''

With the assistance of Vernon Padgett, a retired doctor from Calabasas, Atkinson-Barr has submitted a paper for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, outlining his relatives' experience with the Flagyl treatment.

``I have no doubt that it's going to have a real impact on the way the disease is managed in the future,'' Padgett said.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection usually spread through a tick bite. It affects the nervous system, and can lead to slurred speech, violent rages and loss of memory and cognitive function.

``The infection gets right in the brain,'' Atkinson-Barr said.

It afflicts more than 100,000 people nationwide each year, although fewer than a dozen cases are reported annually in Los Angeles County, and a total of seven have been reported in Ventura County since 1996.

Among those who contracted the disease two years ago were three members of Atkinson-Barr's family. They also were suffering from a stomach infection and got a prescription for Flagyl.

When his relatives' symptoms worsened, Atkinson-Barr contacted a Lyme disease support group on the Internet and asked if anyone else had used Flagyl. Thirty people sent him e-mail relating the same debilitating effects from the drug.

Atkinson-Barr conducted additional research and determined that as the Lyme disease bacterium was killed by the Flagyl, it released a toxin into the body that resulted in the painful side effects. The symptoms lessened as time wore on.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Martin Atkinson-Barr, left, and Dr. Vernon Padgett have teamed up to investigate Lyme disease.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News